For all of which there is, of course, only one
remedy— Deflation. We have got to deflate. In fact, that is what we are doing now ; we are being deflated. People look about them in this saddening world and wonder what is happening. What is this queer, strange feeling that is reaching all of us ? This vague sense of discomfort and apprehension that never leaves us ? Why has our bright world grown so dull—all the things that were bigger and brighter and that are growing smaller and dingier.
How changed the people are ! Where is that merry banker who shovelled me over the sovereigns ? Not this disobliging, discourteous dummy who tells me that my cheque is no good merely because there is no money in my account. Where is that merry fellow who used to drive the three-shilling golf ball into the water hazard and laugh at it ? Where ? There he is, on all fours, upside down in the rushes beside the pond looking for the six- penny ball that someone lost there last week.
All the world is getting like that. Michaelmas Jones, who rode in his thousand-guinea car and weighed 250 pounds without his cuff links, is now walking and weighs only 150 pounds. He's deflating. But, of course, what he weighs now is Troy weight ; the fellow is a real Trojan.
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